Runtime: 2.5 Hours
Rated R
So when the teaser trailer came out for this film featuring Karen O and Trent Rezner's take on The Immigrant Song, I thought wow this movie looks great! In fact it was this teaser trailer that inspired me to actually read Stieg Larson's entire Girl with The Dragon Tattoo Trilogy (If you haven't seen the teaser, check it out at the bottom of the review and . All I have to say is that the teaser did it's job and I didn't waste my time reading all three books and committing to this 2.5 hour movie.
For those of you that are not familiar with the mythos that is the Girl with The Dragon Tattoo series, the 1st novel, which is the basis of David Fincher's film, centers on a journalist named Mikael Blomkvist who works for a Swedish magazine by the name of Millennium. After being sued by a wealthy industrialist for libel, Mikael is enlisted by another rich Swedish industrialist named Henrik Vanger to investigate the 30-year-old murder of his niece Harriet Vanger. Through the novel we are also introduced to the infamous character known as Lisbeth Salander (or The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo). She is a computer-hacking, semi-psychotic woman who assists Mikael in his quest to ascertain the true identity of the murderer. Other than the great murder mystery, it's her character development and relationship with Mikael that is intriguing to watch as the film/novel progresses.
David Fincher's take on the film doesn't disappoint. He sets up the tone of the film quickly, again using the Immigrant Song, to create an opening montage similar to Seven; using this montage, Fincher draws the viewer into the crazed dystopia of Lisbeth and Mikael's life at the beginning of the film. Throughout the movie, you can see Fincher's brand through his dark, non-saturated imagery and investigative-style cinematography that is very reminiscent of one of his earlier works, Seven. To be honest, it was like Fincher was in my mind when I was reading the books. He captured the buildings, especially Henrik Vanger's Hedestad home and the Millennium offices to a T. In fact the Millennium office was so similar to how I had pictured it in the novel, that I had to do a double take as I was watching it. He also captures entire scenes and events almost identical to how it occurs in the novel. There is one key difference that occurs towards the end of the movie, but I won't reveal that here...you'll have to watch it to find out! Of course, as in almost every Fincher movie, there are a couple of scenes that are pretty intense and not for the feint of heart (I'm talking about rape here people!). Yes there is one rape scene that is a little intense, but this intense scene only makes the reprisal much more enjoyable.
Since I'm listening to it as I'm writing this review, I have to comment on the soundtrack to this film. It was fantastic! If you liked The Social Network soundtrack, then you will absolutely enjoy the sophomore effort of Trent Rezner/Atticus Ross with David Fincher. The soundtrack adds a sense of urgency to the suspenseful moments in the movie that really put the viewer on the edge of their seat and make them can't wait 'till the next scene of the film. It also adds to the mood of the film and really meshes with the source material that Fincher is pulling from.
Now to the acting - Daniel Craig and Rooney Mara steal the show in this movie! Daniel Craig plays the perfect Mikael Blomkvist, which is to say that he is like Humphrey Bogart shaken with a little James Bond. A man who is driven solely to get to the bottom of a case and will stop at nothing to get there. It's hard not to like Daniel Craig as an actor and even if you don't really like him, you will be forced to in this movie. Rooney Mara, what can I say...other than the fact that she was the best part of the movie. She played Lisbeth Salander absolutely perfectly: the anti-social personality, her rapid-fire dialogue, and of course the awkward mousiness with a hint of "I will kick your assitude." In the words of Jules (of Pulp Fiction fame), she was one bad ass motherfucker. Lisbeth in the movie is always going a mile-a-minute and can remember even the slightest detail just by looking at it briefly. All in all, she was fantastic and if you're not intrigued by the plot, then you should definitely check out the movie just to see her performance.
In conclusion, this movie was by far one of the best movies that I've seen this year (for sure top 5...but more on this when I post my top films of 2011 next week) and I highly recommend this especially if you enjoyed the books.
4.5/5 Lightsabers.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVLvMg62RPA
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
Saturday, December 17, 2011
Welcome to The Minney Filmster!
Well folks I've finally done it! I've been thinking about starting a movie website where I review recent movies and of course just talk about movies. I am the MinneyFilmster! I know...awesome right?!
Every week I'll try and post a new review on a movie that I've seen using the true time tested 5 lightsaber method. I'll also be starting a segment that I like to call awesomely bad movies...where I review movies like Killer Clowns from Outer Space (Yes people get killed by popcorn and cotton candy in this movie...I know, hilarious!). Anyway, I want to start this blog off right by of course posting about what will be the greatest movie of 2012...The Dark Knight Rises!
If you've been living under a rock for the last 2 years, The Dark Knight Rises is the follow-up to the phenomenally successful second film in Christopher Nolan's take on the caped crusader, The Dark Knight. If you haven't seen The Dark Knight...get the hell off of my blog right now and watch it damn-it! Honestly if you haven't seen it, I have no words for you, but Aziz Ansari does...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8oQCL4okGxQ. Sorry for the rant...back to The Dark Knight Rises.
So anyway, I won an online contest last Friday to view the first 6 minutes of the upcoming Dark Knight Rises. So my friend Zach and I drove a half hour to the closest IMAX theater and waited an hour to watch six minutes of a movie. This sounds ridiculous, but The Dark Knight for me was the perfect movie: it was created by my favorite director, stars my favorite actor, and as my friends know, I quoted the Joker for like 6 months after the movie (okay let's be honest, I still quote the Joker). Anyway back to my story...so my friend and I finally get into the theater about a half an hour before the movie starts, both of us with free Batman t-shirts. At this point I'm completely satisfied with the trip...free t-shirts, fuck yeah! But now, I'm starting to notice all the people around me and I realize a few things: that I can pretty much count all the girls in the theater on one hand, that I am waiting an hour to see 6 minutes of a movie that I won't be able to see until July, and the fact that there is most definitely a who shot first debate going on somewhere in this theatre... Just as I've realized that I've hit a new nerd low, the theater starts to get dark and the clip starts.
All I have to say is the first 6 minutes were...actually there is no word in the english dictionary to describe how awesome it was...so I'm forced to make one up...scrumptulescent. The first 6 minutes were absolutely scrumptulescent!
*Spoiler Alert - Don't read on, if you don't want to find out about the first 6 minutes...*
So the movie starts out with Jim Gordon, played by the outstanding actor Gary Oldman, talking about the death of district attorney Harvey Dent, who was played by Aaron Eckart in the last film. As the clip fades to black, we're suddenly whisked away to the Scottish highlands where a plane is shown landing on a runway. Here we're introduced to Dr. Pavel and a CIA agent. There's a few moments of meaningless dialogue and three hooded men are dragged onto the plane along with Dr. Pavel. The CIA agent then begins to interrogate one of the hooded men, trying to get the man to give up details about Bane, the new villain in this movie. A heavily muffled voice is heard from the background, speaking in what sounds like a semi-russian/spanish accent. The CIA operative then begins to question the hooded man, ultimately tearing the hood off to reveal a bald complete with breathing masked man who is none other than Bane himself! Bane proceeds to break out of the handcuffs using brute force, while his henchman (in another plane mind you) zip-line down onto the plane and rupture a hole in the back of the plane, causing it to plummet towards the scottish landscape. Bane proceeds to grab Dr. Pavel, execute some sort of blood transfusion in midair and escape the free-falling plane leaving one of his henchman behind to take the fall. From there the film fades to black and the 2nd trailer for the film starts off showing us images of Anne Hathaway in her Catwoman costume and Joseph-Gordon-Levitt as John Blake, but it's the final image that leaves me a little breathless: Bane walking away holding the crushed mask of Batman! As soon as my nerdgasm is about to climax, the lights in the theater slowly rose and it was over. Great...blue balls for the next 6 months!
*End Spoilers*
Watching this clip in IMAX was amazing and I've got to say this is making me incredibly excited for this film. Christopher Nolan's track record speaks for itself and I know that this movie will be great! I mean Christopher Nolan making a bad movie is like Ghandi punching a guy in the face...it'll never happen! My only gripe so far is the fact that Bane's voice was sort of hard to understand. I'm not sure if this clip just had bad audio in it or the fact that the scene was filmed with IMAX cameras (IMAX is pretty notorious for being loud, which can sometimes distort dialogue), but the mask muffled and distorted his dialogue. Overall though, this action scene rivaled that of Joker's attack on Harvey Dent in the Dark Knight, which made me wonder what other crazy action Mr. Nolan has in store for us. With this kind of action and the amount of acting power in this movie, I feel that it is on pace to be a better movie than the Dark Knight. I'm really intrigued to see how Tom Hardy's Bane will challenge Batman and to see if Mr. Nolan will do the unthinkable...kill off Batman.
Overall, I give the clip 4 out of 5 lightsabers.
Be sure to check out my review of Girl with a Dragon Tattoo coming on Tuesday.
In the meantime...
You stay classy Minneapolis,
MinneyFilmster
Every week I'll try and post a new review on a movie that I've seen using the true time tested 5 lightsaber method. I'll also be starting a segment that I like to call awesomely bad movies...where I review movies like Killer Clowns from Outer Space (Yes people get killed by popcorn and cotton candy in this movie...I know, hilarious!). Anyway, I want to start this blog off right by of course posting about what will be the greatest movie of 2012...The Dark Knight Rises!
If you've been living under a rock for the last 2 years, The Dark Knight Rises is the follow-up to the phenomenally successful second film in Christopher Nolan's take on the caped crusader, The Dark Knight. If you haven't seen The Dark Knight...get the hell off of my blog right now and watch it damn-it! Honestly if you haven't seen it, I have no words for you, but Aziz Ansari does...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8oQCL4okGxQ. Sorry for the rant...back to The Dark Knight Rises.
So anyway, I won an online contest last Friday to view the first 6 minutes of the upcoming Dark Knight Rises. So my friend Zach and I drove a half hour to the closest IMAX theater and waited an hour to watch six minutes of a movie. This sounds ridiculous, but The Dark Knight for me was the perfect movie: it was created by my favorite director, stars my favorite actor, and as my friends know, I quoted the Joker for like 6 months after the movie (okay let's be honest, I still quote the Joker). Anyway back to my story...so my friend and I finally get into the theater about a half an hour before the movie starts, both of us with free Batman t-shirts. At this point I'm completely satisfied with the trip...free t-shirts, fuck yeah! But now, I'm starting to notice all the people around me and I realize a few things: that I can pretty much count all the girls in the theater on one hand, that I am waiting an hour to see 6 minutes of a movie that I won't be able to see until July, and the fact that there is most definitely a who shot first debate going on somewhere in this theatre... Just as I've realized that I've hit a new nerd low, the theater starts to get dark and the clip starts.
All I have to say is the first 6 minutes were...actually there is no word in the english dictionary to describe how awesome it was...so I'm forced to make one up...scrumptulescent. The first 6 minutes were absolutely scrumptulescent!
*Spoiler Alert - Don't read on, if you don't want to find out about the first 6 minutes...*
So the movie starts out with Jim Gordon, played by the outstanding actor Gary Oldman, talking about the death of district attorney Harvey Dent, who was played by Aaron Eckart in the last film. As the clip fades to black, we're suddenly whisked away to the Scottish highlands where a plane is shown landing on a runway. Here we're introduced to Dr. Pavel and a CIA agent. There's a few moments of meaningless dialogue and three hooded men are dragged onto the plane along with Dr. Pavel. The CIA agent then begins to interrogate one of the hooded men, trying to get the man to give up details about Bane, the new villain in this movie. A heavily muffled voice is heard from the background, speaking in what sounds like a semi-russian/spanish accent. The CIA operative then begins to question the hooded man, ultimately tearing the hood off to reveal a bald complete with breathing masked man who is none other than Bane himself! Bane proceeds to break out of the handcuffs using brute force, while his henchman (in another plane mind you) zip-line down onto the plane and rupture a hole in the back of the plane, causing it to plummet towards the scottish landscape. Bane proceeds to grab Dr. Pavel, execute some sort of blood transfusion in midair and escape the free-falling plane leaving one of his henchman behind to take the fall. From there the film fades to black and the 2nd trailer for the film starts off showing us images of Anne Hathaway in her Catwoman costume and Joseph-Gordon-Levitt as John Blake, but it's the final image that leaves me a little breathless: Bane walking away holding the crushed mask of Batman! As soon as my nerdgasm is about to climax, the lights in the theater slowly rose and it was over. Great...blue balls for the next 6 months!
*End Spoilers*
Watching this clip in IMAX was amazing and I've got to say this is making me incredibly excited for this film. Christopher Nolan's track record speaks for itself and I know that this movie will be great! I mean Christopher Nolan making a bad movie is like Ghandi punching a guy in the face...it'll never happen! My only gripe so far is the fact that Bane's voice was sort of hard to understand. I'm not sure if this clip just had bad audio in it or the fact that the scene was filmed with IMAX cameras (IMAX is pretty notorious for being loud, which can sometimes distort dialogue), but the mask muffled and distorted his dialogue. Overall though, this action scene rivaled that of Joker's attack on Harvey Dent in the Dark Knight, which made me wonder what other crazy action Mr. Nolan has in store for us. With this kind of action and the amount of acting power in this movie, I feel that it is on pace to be a better movie than the Dark Knight. I'm really intrigued to see how Tom Hardy's Bane will challenge Batman and to see if Mr. Nolan will do the unthinkable...kill off Batman.
Overall, I give the clip 4 out of 5 lightsabers.
Be sure to check out my review of Girl with a Dragon Tattoo coming on Tuesday.
In the meantime...
You stay classy Minneapolis,
MinneyFilmster
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